Fool's Gold

White American pop musicians recent fascination with African music has been the subject of heated debate. Even as Vampire Weekend continues to grow in popularity for a sound that fans feel is a fresh coat of paint on indie rocks aging facade, so they have been derided by critics for appropriating the music of a culture not its own.

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And then there are bands like Fools Gold, a big, Los Angeles-based musical mutt whose self-titled, eight-song debut manages to roll Ethiopian soul, Tuareg, Senegalese percussion, tropicalia, sitar-like guitar noodling and sunny California surf music into one gleeful stew  without coming off like a band with an identity crisis. To add to the confusion, Israel-born frontman Luke Top sings mostly in Hebrew, though klezmer and Middle Eastern influences take a backseat to the bands African and Latin ones. But Fools Gold isnt deliberately trying to hock a loogie into the ears of purists with that Heinz 57 approach; what most people dont realize, Top explains, is that this cross-cultural dialogue existed long before he or his peers in Vampire Weekend were born. It makes sense for a band from an international city like LA to produce an international sound.

When people talk about African music, they dont realize that so much African music is influenced by Western music, Top says. I think thats something that gets overlooked too much. So much music is influenced by American music, or is influenced by music outside of [a persons] immediate environment. If you listen to, for instance, Tinariwen, who are a Tuareg desert blues group, their style is very much informed by, like, Jimi Hendrix. And if you hear Mahmoud Ahmed, who is an Ethiopian soul singer, youre hearing James Brown in there.

Though Fools Gold seems to pack disparate sounds and instruments into their music like a glutton fills his plate at a buffet, international influences have been seeping into even the most structured of bands. Foreign Born Fools Gold guitarist and co-founder Lewis Pesacov an indie rock band that predates Fools Gold has been subtly alluding to a love affair with African sounds since its inception. But while Foreign Born still ultimately sounds like indie rock, Fools Gold simultaneously manages to sound like everything at once and nothing in particular.

In the best case scenario, Fools Gold is the ideal channel for so many of our influences to just seep out of our subconscious and enter into the world in a way thats completely organic, Top says. With this open, unrestricted approach to songwriting, Top and Pesacov have unearthed something truly valuable: a fresh, unusual sound thats unpretentious, welcoming and very, very catchy. Were deeply in love with this music, Top says, and I think weve found a way to filter it through our systems at this point to where it feels like a totally natural thing. SARA BRICKNER